Heart valve replacement is a widely used procedure in the treatment of structural heart disease. For example, heart valve replacement may be indicated when there is a narrowing of the native heart valve, commonly referred to as stenosis, or when the native valve leaks or regurgitates. Prosthetic heart valves used to replace these diseased valves include mechanical and tissue-based valves.
Tissue-based valves include leaflets made from biological tissue such as bovine pericardium or porcine pericardium. For use as valve leaflets, such xenograft tissues typically need to be fixed, usually by glutaraldehyde, and attached to a scaffold, usually by a suture. These processes can be labor intensive and time consuming and, given their manual nature, can be the source of some variability in valve performance.